Time To Heal
Time To Heal: Expressions of Resistance, Resilience, and Re-imagination was written by the 2018-2019 9th grade Ethnic Studies students at Roosevelt High School
Introduction
A HEALING-CENTERED SHIFT
Without hope, you can’t reimagine your life or the world. That is why the conversation is shifting from trauma-informed pedagogy to healing-informed. Humans naturally gravitate towards trauma and our negative experiences when we talk about who we are and where we come from, but it can be so heavy and dark to stay in the negative. Students already know that they’ve gone through difficult things. They might not have the language to call it trauma, but they struggle with the healing process, with letting go of what happened-as we all do.
We center hope and re-imagination in the healing process by asking students to start from their assets and consider what they bring to the world—we ask them to celebrate their growth and emphasize that we are all in the process of becoming the best version of ourselves.
When we started our writing and publishing collaboration with 826LA in 2014, the professional development, theory, and approach in education was focused on addressing student needs starting with their trauma. Over the years, the lens shifted to a more socio-emotional theory, which gave us a new language of hope and healing. Dr. Shawn A. Ginwright, author, professor, and activist, writes about the ways in which youth in urban communities navigate through the constraints of poverty and struggle to create equality and justice in their schools and communities. His research reinforces and highlights the importance of healing, giving us the guidance we were looking for.
A trauma-informed practice conveys to students that they are their trauma, but we don’t think that is true. We teach that students are more than their difficult experiences. We validate their lived moments and address the larger systems of oppression, but focus on healing our community.
Healing-centered engagement puts the agency back in the student’s hands rather than saying, you are a victim of this. Ginwright (2018) says, “A healing centered approach to addressing trauma requires a different question that moves beyond “what happened to you” to “what’s right with you” and views those exposed to trauma as agents in the creation of their own well-being rather than victims of traumatic events” (para. 12).
Traditional psychology focuses on healing the individual’s mind, but Ginwright emphasizes a critical social justice approach: when you work on yourself, you’re also changing the systems that cause harm. His approach is a perfect fit for Ethnic Studies, where a lot of the work is to transform and change systems of oppression.
We framed the narrative questions for this book with a healing-centered shift. Some of the questions in each prompt were: Where do you hope to be? How have you healed from this? How have you grown from this? Instead of focusing only on what happened to students we asked students to think about the positive assets in their lives like their culture, community, and family. We went beyond identifying an issue, and asked them to create a call to action: what can we do to start contributing to a change in that issue?
When we’re asking students to think about memories of struggle they also have the option to think about the memories of strength. Liberation and hope have to be tied in. Rather than looking at what disempowers them, we asked them to look at what empowers them. Thinking beyond the hierarchies of power like Trump, the government, or billionaires, we think about the power we have within us and the power we have as a community. We asked, who nurtures the power within you? Thinking about world events and movements led by young people, they recognized their voice has power, the potential for unity, and creation of change. They realized they are not powerless and there is always more they can hope for and reach for. We have seen great change in our classrooms as we start to use healing- centered practices. It is sometimes hard for students to reflect on how they have grown from their experiences, but when they recognize their own resilience, it is amazing. It is not something, as young people, they are asked about a lot. “What’s wrong?” is the more common question and the conversation usually ends there. They may not have the tools to move away from the sad or negative emotions. Some don’t recognize trauma as trauma. Exploring the systematic history of oppression helps give them the language to discover the concepts behind systematic trauma.
It is hard for students to see themselves in a positive light. We often get responses like: I don’t know, I’m lazy, I’m a bad kid, I’m chill. It is hard for students to acknowledge themselves. When we shift the focus to healing, we shift the focus of self-perception. Their answers evolve to: I am a strong person and I am powerful because of what happened to me. We validate their small and big achievements in the language we use: I am proud of you today, I am proud of you for sharing. We share appreciation for each other, when students are sharing, and we build that into our practice.
As teachers, the collective healing makes us extremely reflective. We are constantly asking ourselves: am I creating a community and environment that they feel safe in? It is so difficult to build those relationships and have students be open and support one another. They are taught to be individualistic but we are challenging them to heal as a community and that is hard to create amongst teenagers and even adults. If they don’t feel safe in the classroom, they won’t feel safe to share their experiences. We hope this book will contribute to the decentering of trauma and a new focus on healing in all classrooms, creating more healing-informed educational spaces everywhere.
As practitioners of this work we realized we are also on our own journeys of healing practice. It is vital that we surround ourselves with people who recognize and support our growth through acknowledgement and encouragement and work together with our social workers to have allies in supporting students. We must continue to prioritize our own healing through what nourishes us: nature, running, reading, and acknowledging our own oppressions. At the center of Ethnic Studies is sharing stories; as we are asking students to share stories, it’s important for us as educators to share too. Traditionally our stories have been erased and are not allowed to be shared—it’s a mode, we listen and we share.
Acknowledging that it is time to heal will help us build our collective thinking, this in and of itself is the pedagogy to create a more healing-informed space. The stories in this book will build the re-imagination of our community. This book is the starting place. This is where we can start from, the roses instead of the toxins. Don’t focus on the concrete when you are the rose.
MAGDALENA CEJA, ROXANA DUEÑAS,
JORGE LOPEZ, LILIANA MENDOZA
Ethnic Studies Teachers at Roosevelt High School, Boyle Heights, CA